9/23/09

Here we go again...

Dear Golden Boy,

Now that you are in the middle school, I expect you to do several things yourself. FIRST, remember your &$@& homework! You are no longer in a building where your mother has a key to enter at all hours of the night to retrieve a stray paper here and there that you might have forgotten.

SECOND? I refuse to email your new teacher ONE MORE TIME. If you can’t get your act together at the end of each day to bring home what you need, you’re gonna have to pay that piper yourself. My piper coins are ALL USED UP.

Yeah, about that yelling match last night? If you EVER talk to me like that again, I will smack you so far into next week that you won’t even know what DAY IT IS.

And when I say, “Please get out your backpack and do your homework.” You better say “How high??”

92 comments:

It is way too early in the school year for this level of frustration, isn't it? At this rate, I'd suggest buying stock in Stoli RIGHT now so you can at the very least benefit monetarily from the vodka consumption in your future.

I feel your headache pain, VM. I, too, have a homework forgetter, a book misplacer, a leave-my-stuff-everywhere child. Since she takes after her scatter-brained mom, I'm not a lot of help where modeling desirable behavior is concerned. eep. make that, bleep.

Oh, it is WAY too early for this, and I'm having the same battle with The Girl. She BEGGED to keep up with her keyboard lessons, and then BEGGED to add violin at school (which hasn't even started yet) and PROMISED to practice without whining. I thought my head was going to explode last night after the fourth or fifth time I reminded her to practice and hearing "But I'm so tiiiiirrrreeed."

My "Ruined" one... the youngest girl sounds like she could be related to GB. -A younger first grade version... loses $%!^ all the time... have to call her teacher... my girls are at my school too... except for the middle school one... she's graduated from me... but at least she is the responsible one. (so far)

It's like you're standing in my kitchen! This discussion happens in my house every morning before my son heads out to the middle school, and is repeated every afternoon/evening when we do the rundown of what he's forgotten, what he needed, how he had to be responsible, on and on and on. One month into the school year and I'm exhausted already!

Oh, how I so do "NOT" miss those days! Good luck with Golden Boys new school year! I remember the days of driving all over the neighborhood chasing my own Golden Boy down because he had an orthodonsist appointment he didn't want to go to. Of course, he if a bracket broke on his braces, he would just remove them with plyers! Again, I so do "NOT" miss those days! Take care.

I haven'theard the phrase " hit you into next week" for so long. One of my friends used to say that all the time and maybe I did too. Sometimes it was to New York. Sounds like life goes on much as it did back in my century. I loved it.

My eldest is in 8th grade this year and he doesn't care too much about homework and all that, more like he comes home and starts acting as though he's my hubs and telling me what to do. And then rolls his eyes when I remind him who the heck he's talking to. I smacked mine up the side of the head last night, and he got all big eyed and stared at me like "OH!!" I think I'm gonna do that more often, maybe once a day just to keep him on his toes and see how fast he can duck......lol

Parenting joy. I got tired of being called from the classroom "Mom, I forgot my _____, can you bring it to me.I brought it to him, but wearing a bathrobe and pig tails and gave him a big smooch while waving to all of the 6th grade class. Problem solved.

Me too, me too with a 6th grader. In fact we just had another teacher conference today about lost homework. He was also coming to class late and spending too much time away from class to use the bathroom. We found out he even told a couple of teachers he ad a medical problem and needed surgery. That's whay he was so long in the bathroom.What next?

He lives at our house, too. I got a call from his language arts teacher today. Friday's paper wasn't turned in. I'm sure it's not done yet. I can hear the XBox live through the floor. Time to go do my mother duty, I guess.

When my oldest son started middle school, the Principal called a meeting to tell those of us who were new to the middle school years, "get ready for your precious little golden children to fall off their collective pedestals."

Man, was she ever right.

She also said, let them fail - do not rescue or hound them to do their homework. Middle school doesn't count but the lessons learned in personal responsibility will carry them through when it does.

I'm trying to start that personal responsiblity stuff with my 1st grader (remember your water bottle at soccer, turn in your homework folder, where is your NEW coat, where is your lunchbox). Sometimes I feel like I'm being too hard on him.

i had a kid show up to rehearsal today without script - we have been rehearsing 3 days.....his excuse? he forgot it!! Man I WISH i could have slapped him into next week but I need him here tomorrow and Saturday too.....and I bet since he isn't my own kid, he;d report me and get me fired...little pecker head.....

On the teacher end, I hate waiting for some poor soul to dig through the backpack to find one sheet of paper, wadded beyond recognition, buried on the bottom and only half complete. I can't tell you how many detentions have been spent cleaning a backpack and getting all the class papers in the correct folder. *sigh* Pass the vodka.

I'm of the same mind, too. They need to learn to get their own acts together, don't they? I teach high school kids, and I still get apology e-mails from parents. What's going to happen when the kids go to college?

I guess this is what I have to look forward to at the moment - my munchkin is still a toddler, so my biggest gripes are that he thinks 5:30 is an acceptable hour to wake up (it's not!) and that he seems to be boycotting eating meat. Stopping by from SITS this morning, have a great day!

Have you been listening in on the convo I've been having with Little Dude? Seriously, the kid is driving me nuts with all the incomplete assignments and teachers calling, emailing me. And his dad hasn't helped much.

Your son is involved in a small power struggle with you. The only way to really win in the end is not to play. You explain to him that his school life is his own. Nothing will happen to you if he does badly, he will only be hurting himself. In the future you will not get his assignments, do his homework or cover for him. He is on his own there. If he really believes this he may in fact surprise you and do much better.

And lastly, don't stand in the middle of the living room with your eyes shut screaming at the top of your lungs that you can't find your back pack and are going to miss the buss. Open your @#$% eyes and LOOK for the @#$%ing thing, then haull @$$ to the busstop or you're walking across town, over the river, and thru the woods to school.

LOL!! Oh I so know your pain. Here they have cut out the middle school so kids go straight from elementary to high school in grade 8. Can you imagine that! The teachers are supposed to post homework online for parents and kids to check but seems most of the teachers don't get to it until a week or two later. Grrrr!

Don't forget to tip the waitress. I really DO live on tips....

Cause I know you want to buy stuff...

About Me

I am a teacher, a writer, and the mother of three children. I've decided I'll never give up. No matter how many battles I lose; no matter how many tears I shed; no matter how many martinis I have to drink, I will continue to fight the good fight! I love to laugh, believe that every day is a new day, and thank God each morning that I am still here.